Congressional Budget Office Not Able to Estimate Budget Impact of Obamacare

Date: June 23, 2014

Changes in economy and law cloud outlook

In March 2010, just before the Affordable Care
Act, better known as Obamacare, was enacted, the Congressional Budget Office
and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, estimated that the law would
reduce budget deficits by $124 billion over the period 2010-2019. However,
earlier this month, the CBO announced that it would no longer attempt to
estimate the budget impact of the law, despite a request from a Member of
Congress. The CBO says, “In the four years since those estimates were produced,
there have been significant changes in the economic outlook, in the health care
and health care financing systems, in CBO and JCT’s estimating methodologies,
in provisions of law that relate to the ACA, and in the implementation of the
ACA as guided by judicial decisions and administrative actions. All of those
changes could affect the impact of the ACA on budget deficits, potentially in
significant ways.”